Sunday, August 29, 2010

The Development of Sign Language

Legal Seat - Helsinki, FinlandWORLD FEDERATION OF THE DEAFAn International Non-Governmental Organisation in official liaison with ECOSOC, UNESCO, ILO and WHOPO Box 65, FIN-00401 Helsinki, FINLANDFAX: +358 9 580 3572www.wfdeaf.orgPresidentMARKKU JOKINENEmail: wfd@kl-deaf.fiFACT SHEETSIGN LANGUAGEThe Development of Sign Language• Prior to the 16th century no formal recognition was made of sign language. Resorting to homemade signswas the only way for Deaf people to communicate, until an Italian physician, Girolamo Cardano, tried todevelop some code of signs that never caught on. His work, however, paved the way for a newperspective on Deaf people: communication WAS possible, and just because they could not hear didn’tmean they were inferior.• Spanish monks began to develop a standard set of signs, trying to form similar shapes to the written word.• By the 18th century, in France the first public education of the Deaf was started, by Abbe de L’Epee. Hedevised signs for certain functions of grammar. He taught Deaf pupils through writing, signing, andfinger-spelling successfully.• In the 20th century, Dr. William Stokoe, linguistic researcher, declared American Sign Language anofficial language. Other research on sign language worldwide produced similar results; sign languages aretrue languages with their own set of linguistic rules.The Goals and Role of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD):1. To promote recognition of sign language and the right of Deaf individuals to use sign language;2. To promote the right of Deaf children to have early and full access to sign language;3. To promote increased support for sign language research;4. To promote better quality of teaching of sign language;5. To promote better quality of sign language interpreting;6. To promote more availability of sign language in the media.Sign Language Recognised in the Following Countries:CONSTITUTON:Brazil Finland South AfricaCzech Republic New Zealand UgandaEcuador Portugal VenezuelaLEGISLATION/POLICY:Australia Denmark Romania UruguayBelarus France Russian Federation ZimbabweBelgium Some German States Slovak RepublicBrazil Greece SpainCanada Iceland Sri LankaChina Iran SwedenColombia Latvia SwitzerlandCyprus Lithuania ThailandCzech Republic Mozambique United States of AmericaMORE ON BACKSIGN LANGUAGE OFFICIALLY RECOGNISED BY THE GOVERNMENT:United KingdomCubaMauritiusMYTHS• Sign Language is a pictorial rendition for the words of spoken language, a short cut.• Sign language is universal, the same in every country around the world.• Abstract concepts cannot be expressed in sign language.• People can learn sign language easily.• Education in sign language jeopardises the learning of the written language.FACTS• Sign languages have complex rules of grammar and expansive vocabularies, and arecomfortably capable as vehicles everyday conversation, intellectual discourse, rhetoric, wit, andpoetry!• Sign languages in each country are found to have dialects, just as spoken languages do.• In the United States of America, ASL (American Sign Language) is the fifth most usedminority language, after French, Spanish, German, and Italian.• Some studies reveal that children can learn sign language 2-3 months earlier than they can learnto speak.SIGN LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION• Prior to the late 1800’s, sign language was commonly used to give a good education to Deafpupils.• In 1880, at a conference in Milan, Italy, hearing authorities made the decision to eliminate signlanguage from the classroom and prevent Deaf teachers from teaching in European countries; atthe same time, American schools saw a similar fate as the number of Deaf teachers (47% of allteachers in Deaf schools) went down to a single digit.• In place of using sign language, nearly all schools implemented the Oral Method, placing Deafchildren’s education in the Dark Ages for 100 years.• To this day, in spite of numerous studies showing that Deaf children learn best through signlanguage, Deaf education has still not fully recovered from the blows dealt by the MilanConference and by the reduction in numbers of Deaf teachers.INTERESTING TIDBITS!• Sign language is different from other minority languages, in that it is a visual language- facialexpressions, body language and visual placements are all important components of signlanguage.• Although Deaf people consider themselves (and research supports this view) a linguisticminority group, governments and other institutions insist on labelling Deaf people as ‘disabled’.• There are currently about 4,000 recorded spoken/written languages in the world- if morecountries recognise sign languages as well, this number would go up dramatically.• Languages are the roots of culture.PRESERVE SIGN LANGUAGE, SAVE CULTURE!World Federation of the DeafGeneral SecretariatPO Box 6500401 Helsinki, FinlandFAX: +358 9 580 3572Email: info@wfdeaf.orgWebsite: www.wfdeaf.org(updated: October 2006)